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FROM HERE, YOU CAN’T SEE PARIS

Name: FROM HERE, YOU CAN’T SEE PARIS
Author: Michael S. Sanders
ISBN: 0-06-018472-8

SEASONS OF A FRENCH VILLAGE AND ITS RESTAURANT

by Michael S. Sanders ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2002

A good and leathery year abroad, an honest and deeply enjoyed experience that avoids skimming off only the fruity bonbons...

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A French village, a good restaurant, and a year’s worth of time to spend in both add stock to the lives of Sanders and his family.

You’ll find Les Arques on Michelin map #79, tucked away in the chaotic limestone landscape of southwest France, where one-lane roads, crumbling hilltop towns, and 12th-century Romanesque churches give medieval rhythms to the days. Les Arques, where Sanders (The Yard, 1999) spent his year, has 50 houses, 169 people (including those in the village and its surrounding lands), and one business. As agriculture becomes more tenuous economically and the population drops, Les Arques survives, Sanders figures, thanks to the French love of cultural heritage, first, and of good eating, second. As for heritage, not only are there Lascaux and a picaresque history, but also a museum and attendant art community honoring a celebrated local, Ossip Zadkine, France’s most famous sculptor in the years after WWII (though “I certainly had no idea who he was when I arrived,” admits Sanders, adding that he finds Zadkine’s work “bad Picasso”). As for food, though the area may be poor, its graces include foie gras, lamb, saffron, truffles, and the vin de Cahors, and it’s a test to find a bad restaurant. Sanders has no wish to make the village sound precious: the apocalyptic stink of duck poop, the politics of foie gras, and the stony exterior of the local population (Sanders finds his six-year-old daughter and the friendly family dog to be good ice-breakers) overcome any suggestion of quaint, selective neglect. The author renders the restaurant’s workday as cannily as he does the village’s moments of abrupt dislocation from the present, when the air suddenly seems to hold a thousand years of history in it.

A good and leathery year abroad, an honest and deeply enjoyed experience that avoids skimming off only the fruity bonbons while neglecting the ruck of daily life.

Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2002

ISBN: 0-06-018472-8

Page Count: 320

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
FAMILIES OF THE VINE
by Michael S. Sanders

- BOOK REVIEW
THE YARD
by Michael S. Sanders

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.